Many thanks, Dsvick: We've been working hard on the actual 'look' and 'feel' of the site, trying to make it, as far as a screen will allow, a little like browsing around a traditional high street bookshop. It'll never be quite like that, of course, but we hope our approach is closer to that experience than some other brash, high octane bookstores that infest the net. We're also very approachable, like the old chap in a worn cardigan you remember blowing the dust of the shelves. And, again like the guy in the cardy, we don't mind of our books and our authors are read second-hand. Once a book has been fairly paid for, it can be fairly shared. Hoots. Neil

Also a very good-looking bookstore, from which I will no doubt be buying as soon as my TBR list has cleared a bit.

I do have a couple of quibbles, though: Why are you trying to google-proof your website? Remember the key words: Google is blind. The googlebot can't read your home page. And your menu font, cool as it is, was so hard for me to read (at least on this screen) that I had to turn off images so I could read the menu. Also, epubs would be nice ... my 505 doesn't get along well with pdfs.

Incidentally, it's a minor thing and conventional wisdom no doubt disagrees with me, but one of the things I like about Baen is that if they want to sell me a book for $6, they sell me a book for $6 (see above about TBR list...) not $5.99. It just gives me a feeling that the seller is more honest and upfront than weaseling about one penny. YMMV.

Just in random musings, I think one of the reasons I'm more willing to take a chance on an unfamiliar author with an ebook than a pbook is that if it turns out I hate the book, I can just delete it (or ignore it) with no guilt feelings. I can't force myself to discard a paper book, at least one that is still readable. I always have to find them a new home, even if it's just remembering to take them over the supermarket to donate to the charity book sale (they've got a table of books for $1 PB, $2 HC, with an honor box, and the proceeds go to local charities). So they usually hang around cluttering up the place until I finally round them up and sort: my mother-in-law might like these, those go to charity, etc. It may sound silly, but we live in a small apartment and most of its contents, aside from the essentials (and we've got a very limited view of what constitutes "essentials") is shelves and books. Space to put them all in is more important to me than it is to most people. And ebooks take no space!

I love everything about the look of your web site. Especially the home page with the sort of medieval manuscript look to it. Makes me want to browse the entire site. Though everyone will have different opinions on that inevitably. I don't see the problem with only PDFs available directly through your site as it is made clear that other formats (including mobi and epub) are available at SmashWords.

Your views on DRM sum it up nicely. I don't know if Internet piracy is the hole in the bottom of the ship that will sink the publishing industry as the major sources seem to feel it is, the e-book segment of the market is still to small to say, but I do no DRM is not the solution. A somewhat apropos quote:

Quote:

“[condoms are] a bulwark against pleasure, but a cobweb against danger” - Marquise de Sévigné *

I wish I could take a pledge to never purchase a e-book with DRM, but sometimes I want the book and it is only available with DRM and in the wrong format. So I will purchase it and do what is necessary for me to make use of my purchase with a clear conscience. The ultimate truth may be the authors/publishers will probably have to accept some piracy as unavoidable red ink just as retailers now do shoplifting.

I'm (co-)publishing the eBook edition of Rettungskreuzer Ikarus, a German SciFi series with 37 issues by now. Our eBooks are DRM-free from day one on.

Yo may find all issues on the Internet, illegally of course. But which issues? Not ours, the DRM-free eBooks, but illegal scans of the printed versions (I know, since we use different covers)!
All those pirates (*arrr!) around could have just bought one of our issues and distribute them freely afterwards. But, nope, they decide to scan the original edition and let us sell our eBook version at a fair price at 50% below the printed version ...

One of those tales larger publishers simply won't want to hear.

DRM? Delusions of Ridiculous Methods ...

I'm with you, Neil, all the way. Both as a reader as well as a publisher (and as a writer, btw).
And, nice layout you've got there!